one more Christmas item

I finished this just after New Year's haha. I posted a sneak peak of the button/bead mix back in November, but I haven't posted any progress pictures. So now you get the whole thing at once. I got this idea from Button It Up by Susan Beal. I followed her instructions pretty closely and for the most part, found them to be very accurate. If you have any questions about the process, materials that I used, or where I bought anything, please let me know!

I only have one finished tree for now, but I bought and covered two Styrofoam bases at the same time. I'd like to make a fall tree next.

You'll notice the iron behind my covered bases. I did iron my fabric first! I pinned the fabric onto the bases.

Here's the picture of my bead/button mix again. I made this fleece lined box in the fall. This was the first project that I used it for. I ended up not using the pearls in the upper left hand corner because the holes are too small to fit through pins. I added more buttons and sequins to the mix as I kept working.

Here's the first progress shot. The first layer of buttons is primarily white.

Once most of the white were place, I started adding more green and red buttons as a second layer.

I added as many buttons as I possibly could. When I couldn't fit anymore, I added sequins to the few remaining spaces on the tree.

A close up shot. This will give you a better idea of the different pins and whatnot that I used. If anyone wants more specifics, please let me know!

Then I added a felt base. I attached it to the tree with double stick tape.

Finally, I added this neat gold adornment to the top. I built the top of the tree up a little with some extra felt scraps so the adornment would perch perfectly with just a little tacky glue. This is the ONLY thing that I glued to the tree. Everything else (except the base which used tape) is attached with pins.

Here it is completed! As you can see, the gold adornment leaves lots of glitter behind so the felt base is now covered with glitter.

I spent about 2 months on the project, but if you push and work on it all at once, you can probably get the whole thing done in 8-10 hours or so over a few days. As I mentioned before, I would like to do a fall tree next, but I'll probably wait a little bit before I start it.